It went okay, or so it seems. Dave started things off by describing Wintour as "transcendent", and then asked her to agree or disagree. Wintour's response was to take a minor swipe at Times Op Ed columnist Maureen Dowd, who, for some inexplicable reason - the Sunday Op Ed page? Really? - devoted her attentions to an unilluminating column about the woman also known as Nuclear Wintour.

Wintour's reputed toxicity was not on display, although she came off as a bit disingenuous when she half-explained/half-complained that, over the past week, she's been described by Times writers as an "ice queen," an "alien," and a "dominatrix". (Really? She's never heard herself described that way before? Much be nice to live in that bubble.) Not surprisingly, she seemed rehearsed - "I seem to remember that the movie was fiction? And we really like fiction at Vogue," was her response to Dave's prodding about the film The Devil Wears Prada - and she made startling good use of the camera time, mugging to the at-home audience with all manner of sultry-ish stares and attempted smiles.

Initial verdict (based on, of course, a 2-minute teaser clip): Wintour has a sense of humor, but not enough of one to jettison her "ice queen" reputation; she is confident, but not comfortable. It is doubtful this performance - strangely, briefly Palinesque at times - will earn her, or her scary-skinny magazine, more fans. So we are left with two three (initial) questions: One: What designer was she wearing? Two: When was the last time Vogue published actual fiction? Three: Can someone with some Photoshop talent show us what "lukewarm royalty from outer space with a whip" actually looks like?

Related: The Last Empress [NY Times]

Earlier: Join Us For Vogue's Smallest September Issue Ever!
The September Issue: A Portrait Of The Quaint Old Consumer Economy
NY Times Critic: Vogue Documentary Like Watching The Titanic Two Miles Out To Sea

"This is a private event for the women of fashion and the men of finance," explained the woman with the clipboard. "And you are a woman who works in finance!" The rejected banker — who, though this should hardly matter, was young, attractive, and wearing a nice cocktail dress such as would have suited the Fashion Meets Finance crowd — stepped away from the velvet rope crestfallen.

I walked right in, even though I had no cocktail dress, and was not even wearing heels, because I am a woman who works in fashion.

The bar was crowded. Then it became more so. When the "tasting hour" designated by the gluten-free vodka sponsor ran out and I asked for a glass of water, the bartender said he could only sell me bottled water for $5. I protested, and he turned to the woman to my right, who had worn a cocktail dress and platform sandals, who desired a vodka cranberry. But while he was filling her glass with ice, he waved his gun over my empty tumbler and pressed 'water.' The noisy, tacky, tiki-themed environs of this particular East Midtown bar motivate one to appreciate even the smallest of mercies.

There's really no reason for me to go to such a thing as Fashion Meets Finance. I don't need to "meet" anyone, and even if I did, I have always specialized in dating men who earn in the multiple thousands of dollars. I'm sure, if the need arose, I would fall for another one of those in a trice. This assortment of Windsor knots and Harvard degrees and clicking high heels is not my crowd. I suppose I wanted to know for sure that Fashion Meets Finance — tagline: "Ladies, you don't need to worry that the cute guy at the bar works in advertising!" — actually exists, because it seems like the kind of thing that is too disappointing, or perhaps too wretched, a statement of human cravenness and of contemporary gender politics to be true. I suppose I was acting in the grand tradition of Jezebels who throw themselves on live New York dating grenades. But mainly, though, I never pass up an opportunity to use a good fake name. My friend who joined me agreed that was the evening's main selling point — she often passes herself off as Ellen Olenska, the population who actually reads Wharton being apparently small and not generally given to standing on street corners with a clipboard and an earpiece, the better to sneer at women with advanced degrees in economics.

As I was departing the mosh pit scene at the bar, a middle aged man with frizzy hair tapped me on the shoulder. "Do you work in fashion? Because i just finished reading an excellent book about the fashion industry. Called The Devil Wears Prada." He went on to explain that he had been to Fashion Meets Finance's several past events — this one was dubbed "The Recession Is Over!" — and always had a good time, because as "an outgoing person," he can always meet other outgoing people. I escaped, but not before he had told me that he had always wanted to go to the country where I grew up, New Zealand, and heartily advised me to see "a wonderful, funny movie about fashion," Brüno.

Then I talked to a Spaniard who worked for UBS but with whom I had difficulty communicating, between my accent and his. "I have heard New Zealand is very beautiful," he cooed, before adding, "maybe I go there some day if I can get the vacation time."

I trudged back to the bar for another surreptitious water. If there was one thing that was surprising about the crowd, it was that it seemed to lack a certain fashionable quality. While one would hardly expect freelance styling assistants for the European Vogues to journey up to E. 50th Street on a Thursday night, the "fashion" representatives all embodied a certain value of "good taste" that true fashion types, in my experience, put little stock in; everyone had on a tasteful dress, tasteful shoes, and small amounts of tasteful jewelry, and while everyone looked very nice, I began to wonder just how many of these people really worked in fashion. Where were the plain white tees styled just so? The Alexander Wang handbags? The ironic 90s floral prints? The scarf stolen from your mother? The vintage? The bar looked as if it had drawn an entirely typical bon-chic-bon-goût Murray Hill crowd and deposited it 10 blocks northward. Some of the men were imposters, too: one admitted to working in — gasp — real estate.

I soon found myself talking to a Jamaican who'd grown up in Crown Heights about that neighborhood's gentrification, and also the gentrification of Harlem and Fort Greene, a topic in which, as a white resident of Harlem, I am somewhat personally invested. "My friend who lives in Harlem called me the other day, said the neighborhood, it's gone," smiled the man. "He passed a white girl on the street at 2 a.m. and he said she didn't even look scared. That's when you know!" I could have pointed out that yesterday on my block seven squad cars chased and arrested a boy who looked to be about 12 years old, and then arrested his 15-year-old brother when the brother tried to calm their screaming mother, but I did not see the good in even indirectly reminding anyone who grew up in Crown Heights of the bad old days. The man started off in business running a tailor shop, so instead we discussed two-button vs. three-button suits, eventually finding common ground in double vents and natural fibers. I told him to Google Ozwald Boateng, and when I asked why he'd come to Fashion Meets Finance, he paused and said, "I guess I just wanted to know this is really there," which sounded wise enough.

Then I met an Indian man who said he'd recently corresponded with a woman from the New Zealand consulate, in the trade delegation, named Georgina, did I happen to know her?

The Countess Olenska and I decided to talk to a young group of clean-cut banker types who seemed especially secure; their ties were wider than anyone else's, they broadcast WASPish entitlement and lacrosse expertise and looked like they probably browsed porn on their daily commutes to Connecticut. Also one of them had just done that thing where he thumped his beer square on a friend/victim's bottle's neck and his beer fizzed all over the place, oh yeah brah. The countess and I walked over, looked at the men, looked at each other, then looked again, more awkwardly, at these laughing golden boys — and immediately I knew that all the liquid eyeliner and velvet ropes and jet planes in the world will not stop and have not stopped me from remaining the person I was in high school. There's a certain kind of popularity that, if you should be so lucky as to experience it at 15 or 16 or 17, deposits in its wake a sense of pure social mastery that never really leaves you. And there's a certain kind of awkwardness, bodily shame, and tongue-tied single-sex-high-school befuddledness in what I still think of as "mixed" social situations that precludes any kind of innate suavity and leaves one always at the mercy of frizzy-haired shoulder-tappers.

So we didn't talk to the boys.

Except, then, somehow one did peel off — tall, Princeton, hedge fund — and he told me about how he grew up in Kentucky, and this year got to see the Derby horses in their stables before the race. His trainer friend informed him that virtually all professional race horses are doped. "They call it 'medicine,'" he explained, "They say, 'This horse needs its medicine.'" I dreamed of cracked-out race horses with enlarged hearts when I fell asleep last night. I don't think I'll be going to Fashion Meets Finance again.

Fashion Meets Finance [FMF]

At The Stylista Premiere, Anne Slowey Charms; Joe Zee: 'We Weren't Mean To Be Mean' [Observer]

The juicy stuff. The scandalous stuff. Who showed up late and bitchy for her cover shoot? Who had to have Evian for her lap dog? Which editor is generally hated for her negative attitude? Who is ultimately responsible for the epic amount of Photoshopping that goes on to create a cover "image"? What do the photographs of the women on the covers of these magazines look like before they are tampered with? (Well, we have an answer for that.) The chances that we'll see any of this stuff is as slim as the waists they whittle on the covers of Elle and Marie Claire.

Having worked in magazines for 10 years, I was privy to all kinds of tantalizing secrets: A friend at a rival teen mag witnessed breast augmentation scars while a certain pop star was changing at a photo shoot. A member of a boy band confessed he threw away his underwear after wearing it once. I walked into an interview with a popular recording artist, who had a major radio hit, to find the conference room at the record label completely filled with marijuana smoke. And I was small time! Imagine the stories the folks at Marie Claire could tell. Instead, Running In Heels will be an attempt to "uncover what it means to be a working woman in the cut-throat, exhilarating world of a top fashion and beauty magazine," which means we'll probably see, well, women running in heels. Which we saw when The Devil Wears Prada came out, two years ago.

Mags Go From Spreads to Screens [AdAge]
Marie Claire, Style Net to Create Reality Series [Folio]

Earlier: Here's Our Winner: Redbook Shatters Our Faith In, Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God

It's not that [27 Dresses] is cynical; it's that all the chick-flick trappings — the fashion, the wedding chitchat, the masochistic one-way crush — drive the story rather than the other way around. 27 Dresses is a movie geared to a pitch of high matrimonial-princess fever. It's white-lace porn for girls of every age, and the way that it revels in that get-me-to-the-altar mood, to the point of making anyone who isn't getting married feel like a loser, is the picture's key selling point...Even the satire of the wedding industry plays like a backhanded endorsement of it.

Anyone who has seen a chick flick knows what is going to happen next, and next, and next... But there just isn't enough story here to justify a 107-minute running time, no matter how many montages debuting director Anne Fletcher whips up. Heigl, who demonstrates her gift for physical comedy, has complained in interviews about the sexist tone of "Knocked Up." But what happens when she teams up with a woman director and screenwriter? You get "27 Dresses," which delivers that great feminist message: A woman's life is meaningless without marriage.

[D]irector Anne Fletcher... makes the reasonably insightful, moderately funny point that modern American weddings, however they may strain for individuality and specialness, are all pretty much alike. The problem is that much the same could be said about modern American romantic comedies...The best thing about "27 Dresses," which was written by Aline Brosh McKenna...is that the Guys are not really the point. Or rather, if getting the Right one is the point of the story, the spark of comedy is carried by the women in the picture. Too bad it's such a dim spark.

There is a movie to be made from that shared humiliation — actually, there are many, and they already litter the shelves of Blockbuster. So at this point, the question is whether "27 Dresses" has anything new to add. And the answer is a resounding no...

Heigl is terrific, this uninspired romantic comedy is considerably less so. A tired pastiche of the 27-odd wedding-themed vehicles that preceded it, the film essentially slaps together all the stuff that worked so well the first or second time around, minus any of the original charm or verve. That it manages to function at all is mainly Heigl's doing...

"27 Dresses" is a romantic comedy in which nothing the least bit surprising occurs, no disagreement or estrangement seems sufficiently serious to persist, and no one behaves in a manner that cannot be predicted by anyone who has seen more than two or three other romantic comedies.

"27 Dresses"... sags like a day-old bouquet... when Jane's supermodel little sister Tess (Malin Akerman) shows up, throwing an extroverted, platinum-blond spanner into the already shaky works. It's at this point that "27 Dresses" becomes a movie not about people or relationships, but about cute apartments and cuter outfits...There is not one surprising, charming or endearingly quirky thing about "27 Dresses," which hews to the rom-com formula with bland, regimented precision. This is a movie that actually invokes the term "Bridezilla" as if it's a brand-new idea instead of a ready-for-retirement cliche.

Katherine Heigl is amiable, pleasant to look at, and has comic ability, and so on that basis "27 Dresses" is almost satisfying. In a romantic comedy, half the ballgame is the charm of the lead actress, and it's no strain to spend 107 minutes in Heigl's company. But then there's the other half of the ballgame - things like story and having characters that make sense and a resolution that's satisfying and a script that avoids cheap sentimentality. On those points, "27 Dresses" collapses. Actually, it collapses in slow motion. It gets worse and worse as it goes along and finally ends just as it's becoming unbearable.

If only it didn't have that unconvincing, sub-par sub-plot, which trots out blah characters and weak twists that include, I'm not kidding, vacuum-cleaning. I understand why the script gives Jane an obnoxious twiggy sister (Malin Akerman) and a dreamboat boss (Edward Burns), and I understand why it throws them together. But Burns looks bored. To death. I'm really worried about him.

"27 Dresses" is so chock full of romantic-comedy cliches, it almost plays like a parody. (It might be fun, though, if they handed out lists at the multiplex door to allow you to check them off as you go along — could be an interactive thing. You know, to help pass the time.)

It's an uninspired romantic comedy that adheres slavishly to the conventions of the genre. But the movie is made pleasant by the likability of its star, Katherine Heigl, and her chemistry with the affable James Marsden. Certainly Heigl fares better in less formulaic fare, such as Judd Apatow's irreverent Knocked Up, but she does raise the level of this chick flick from bland to mildly entertaining.

Earlier: Now That Her Paycheck Has Cleared, Katherine Heigl Calls Knocked Up Sexist

You're young. You're fabulous. But above all, you're aspirational. Why content yourself with reading the book, or just seeing the movie. Now you can wear
the dream too! Of course, it's not Prada, dumbass, and Anna Wintour would shrivel into herself with disgust and horror if you ever came within ten feet of her with any of the aforementioned items, but hey, you're fat and poor so this is the best you can do.

Alternatively, go for this. It features "a sterling silver devil with a pitchfork, lipstick, and a heel". And tell everyone the 'lipstick' is really the shrivelled penis of the last man who dumped you. Works for me.